John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
It's not the Alexa award. It's that the RPs appealed more to people happy to shit all over other people.

Deirdre Saoirse Moen ‏@deirdresm
I figured as much (and said so in response to a comment).

Marty ‏@hugbug94
VDBEALE doesn't have the writing chops to be in your league.

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
Thanks, although I would not that for commercial success, writing chops are not always required.

Current Alexa Ranks

Scalzi Global: 84,147
Scalzi USA: 18,628

VP Global: 84,187
VP USA: 17,599

Now, Alexa is a ridiculous measure, as it is based on links rather than the more straightforward metric of traffic. At present, VP alone has about 3x Scalzi's Google pageview traffic, and VP+AG has about 4x the traffic. If history is any guide, we should see the first 2 million-pageview month in August; this month is on course for 1.9 million+ combined.

But, as is our wont, let us count the lies:

I very desperately wish I had John Scalzi's career. I'm a lead game designer, a lead editor, and a minor author. He's a very successful midlist author who is making some headway in television and failed as a game writer. My blogs surpass his by a factor of four and are nearly double his all-time peak. My Twitter Impression/follower ratio is considerably higher (355 to 125), and despite having only one-fifth the Impressions and one-seventeenth the followers, I expect my Impressions will pass up his within 18 months.

I will trumpet to the heavens if my Alexa score ever passes his. It did, months ago. I didn't. That's VP alone, by the way, VP+AG is far beyond his, as AG alone is around 105k Global.

People who read here are assholes. Actually, according to the demographics, you're much wealthier and better-educated than the norm. And considering how lightly I moderate, I think it's self-evident that most people here are more civil than average as well. You're certainly less vulgar than Scalzi's commenters, for the most part. I like you, anyhow. Obviously, he doesn't.

RPs appealed more to people happy to shit all over other people. Considering how the SJWs have treated the 2015 nominees, this is certainly false when compared to them. But compared to Sad Puppies, that's probably true. It's an unfair and misleading exaggeration, but not a lie.

VDBEALE doesn't have the writing chops to be in Scalzi's league. Actually, I'd put us both right in the same league. We're both mediocre, albeit for very different reasons. My Style has no melody, no flare. It is plodding and pedestrian whereas Scalzi's Style is light and breezy. Scalzi can't do characters and they all speak in one snarky voice: his own. My characters are diverse and distinct, albeit limited to the upper half of the male spectrum. I think Story comes out fairly equal, although he directly rips off the greats whereas I merely borrow here and there, Concept is also fairly even, his clever stunts versus my worldbuilding.

99 Comments:

You're too kind to Scalzi. He's obviously a fanfic writer, one who happens to write in an age that doesn't mind fanfic too much. That piece of luck doesn't mean he's any good though. He lacks imagination.

Scalzi will be quickly forgotten, twice as quick in a literature of ideas.

Has he not seen all the leftists shitting on the Aunt Jemima Bruce Jenner for saying he is a republican?Or John Hopkins whose hospital needs a sign” __ days since a nurse was raped in the parking lot.” banning Chick Fila from its grounds.http://thepunditpress.com/2015/04/24/johns-hopkins-bans-chick-fil-a-from-campus-claiming-restaurant-a-microaggression/“Liberal and gay friendly as Johns Hopkins” has lots of crime and had a doctor busted for shooting video of his extensive pediatric gynecology exams. http://nypost.com/2014/07/21/johns-hopkins-settles-with-victims-of-pervy-gyno-for-190m/

"I'm merely the person who Beale so very desperately wishes he had the career of."

I waffle back and forth on whether SJWs actually have faith (hope without evidence) that people want to be them or if it's just a manifestation of low self-esteem. I'm not too concerned about it one way or the other and probably wouldn't think about it all if they weren't constantly bringing it up.

I haven't read enough of Scalzi to rate his style compared to yours, but I suggest you are doing yourself a disservice with "plodding" and "pedestrian". Your work is not stylistically beautiful or poetic but it has a clarity and pace many writers could do better to emulate. An authorial voice that knows how to get out of its own way is not as common a gift as one might think.

Regarding the third point: two things keep me returning to this blog - which I discovered thanks to gamergate via Mike Cernovich, FTR - the honesty of our host and the open discourse of the comment sections. In short VP is intellectually stimulating and so long as it remains that way it will always be a superior site compared to others. Especially those run by people who just want a cheer choir to preach to.

whether SJWs actually have faith (hope without evidence) that people want to be them or if it's just a manifestation of low self-esteem.

They want the bar for everything IQ/Beauty/Math lowered to below where they are so they look better without any effort. Its like the small penises painted in the Vatican made women who had never seen a naked man glad their husband was so big.

"BigGaySteve, are you also ShepherdOfTheGurneys"

No I gaye up being a health care traveler years ago, and the die verse city as well. In fact I have not touched a homeless man in years, although I have never done it in the way of the gay NY Times reporters. At a previous job I couldn't go 2 shifts without having homeless patients. I do follow some of the same blogs but wouldn't put any current work info out there to positively ID myself as any of ShepherdOfTheGurneys co workers would be able to. Obviously we have both noticed the abyss staring back.

I read your Throne of Bones and a couple of others.You have some ability indeed, though I have to agree with your self assessment. More than anything I think you need an editor or collaborator who can improve your dialogue. At least you rarely let the pace drag.I've certainly read worse stuff in this genre.I would rate Scalzi considerably above you, as it stands, though he has only written one notable book. He isn't Niven or Vinge or even Connie Willis, let alone Wolfe or Herbert.And tell that brilliant fellow Wright that he needs a nasty editor too. Keep the best bits with half the pages, that would work wonders.

You wrote like a man that is narrating a rather well written after action report. Sorry I'm putting your QM novels in movie form I do that to all literature to form the images and story line in my mind

You wrote like a man that is narrating a rather well written after action report. Sorry I'm putting your QM novels in movie form I do that to all literature to form the images and story line in my mind

I am pretty sure I have stated here that Ebola and AIDS are a result of sending white mans medicine to Africa, resulting in mother nature responding with things white mans medicine can't cure. Also that giving LOW IQ 3rd worlders free meds creates drug resistant diseases because they think they are smarter than doctors who tell them to take all their meds, so they sell the free meds given to them when they feel better, but still have some of disease best able to resist the drugs in their system. Basically their stupidity choses to only kill off the 90% weakest of a disease what left is able to resist meds causing decades worth of evolution in a single patient. SOG is for sending more free drugs to Africa.

Scalzi is the reason I read whatever an SJW says and mentally reverse it. They always lie and they also always seem to project. It wouldn't surprise me if Scalzi desperately wished he had Vox's career.

I am pretty sure I have stated here that Ebola and AIDS are a result of sending white mans medicine to Africa, resulting in mother nature responding with things white mans medicine can't cure. Also that giving LOW IQ 3rd worlders free meds creates drug resistant diseases because they think they are smarter than doctors who tell them to take all their meds, so they sell the free meds given to them when they feel better, but still have some of disease best able to resist the drugs in their system.

And not only are we doing this in Africa we are importing these dimwits now.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I really liked Summa Elvetica. It has a permanent place on my bookshelf (which will soon be joined by Awake in the Night Land). Brought Old Man's War to work, hoping to give it away...no takers so far.

On SJW faith in themselves...it's just preening, doesn't go any deeper than that. These are folks who respond so strongly to NLP that the entire self-help industry now panders to them. Think positive! Deceive yourself for to better deceive others!

Vox has a very good and honest response. You know John Scalzi would never admit that "Redshirts" starts off pretty good but runs out of steam half-way.

My writing is strange. Huge chunks of narrative, followed by large bites of dialogue and repeat. Since I am not a professional, I don't usually do a second draft. I do think my concepts are pretty good, albeit nothing that would shake the foundation of SF-F.

The writing has to accord with some level of reality. There is no way I could cope with any book that incorporated characters and storylines that "challenged gender norms". Given it is highly likely that Scalzi would have done something like this, I would just be annoyed by the book. Much like most modern TV where I find myself saying, "he wouldn't have done that", "that wouldn't have happened like that". Its like asking people to believe that Jesse Eisenberg could play James Bond in a film. Its not believable that hes a tough assassin who can bash heads together and be a lady killer. This is what they are doing. Its all the same game, to deny the reality of natural inequality.

One of the things Ive noticed that jars with reality is how men are often rewarded for failing female shit tests. For example John Snow is continually challenged in GoT by the good looking ginger one, after much ball breaking, and him complying and looking a little bit embarrassed she miraculously has the hots for him. Its patently obvious that isn't how it generally works. One only has to look at all these empowered actress princesses and the men they date in real life. Invariably dominant men, they aren't really attracted to the complying nice guy, they want the winner.

Vox talks about how they are lying and that shining a light on it all is what matters. Show it in all its glory. For example could anybody who is reasonable come away from the Pakman interview and think that he was engaging in much more than a smear attack? Its not about Vox "winning the internet" its about showing people as they really are, and what they are up to.

Basically I need to believe that things are likely to play out like that to lose myself in the story. If the writing is a bit clunky that won't help but its less likely to put me off than nonsensical storylines and characters. The empowered kick ass princess warrior can't exist.

"I read this and thought of the guest of honor piece with his open letter of "No one wants to be in the company of assholes" or some such"

The more I think about it, the more I think the whole thing is a problem of misperception (a kind of gloss on the old saw that Rightists simply think Leftists are mistaken, whereas Leftists think Rightists are Evil.)

They don't get the dissonance. I can't think of a single conservative-type thinker or friend who goes around grinding his teeth and hating other people. They simply think certain policies should be formulated on the basis of other considerations than the ones which are now given priority. It's just an argument about which things, in a world of limited resources, a virtuous society ought to pay attention to. Sometimes correct, and sometimes not. The people questioning TENS are mostly not Bible-thumping mouth breathers, but even among the ones who ostensibly are, the issue is not really that they care a whole lot about the history of science; the issue is that they think their historical culture and people are being paved over and exterminated by a bunch of lunatics who also don't care about science, they just want to destroy their enemies.

MYSELF: (middle of longer conversation) ...well, you have to keep in mind the mountain of data which appears to suggest that for better or worse, blacks on average and on the mean tend to have lower IQs than whites.

SJW: Yes, but aha! Whites have lower IQs than Jews and Asians! Gotcha!

MYSELF: (sigh) Yeah, but the point is.... WE DON'T MAKE POLICY based on IQ differentials between Jews and whites. There's no crazy unrealistic campaign designed to close the white/Jewish "achievement gap."

SJW: I don't care. Obama is awesome. And you are a stupid stupid-head.

Back before the Great Society got under way, D.P. Moynihan wrote a policy paper predicting all the train wrecks that would arise from this idiotic set of ideas. He was run out of town as an Evil Racist. But what he said mostly came true. Here we are some 50-odd years later, and all we have to show for it is a load of crime, distorted markets, bizarre Orwellian anti-reasoning that makes Twister look like the Bolshoi, fatherless children, young men ruined in jail, and about half a million raped white women. Great job, guys.

We've got to DO something!!!11! Make more Jackie Robinson biopics! Jackie Robinson and Michael Brown fighting the evil white Genghis Khan!! Teach black children to design pyramids!! Something! ANYTHING!! The less realistic the better!

She had heard, long ago, that there wes no prejudice against women in the Belt. And it was true! On Earth women still held low-paying jobs. Employers claimed that physical strength was needed for certain jobs, or that a woman would quit to get married at the most crucial time, or even that her family suffered when a woman worked. Things were different in the Belt; and Tina had been more surprised than elated. ...

"If this is what passes for poetry these days it is no wonder the world is going to hell in a handbasket.A robot could do better."

The problem is that this culture is permitting its poetry to be written by what are, more or less, robots -- or the moral and functional equivalents. A culture which rewards Maya Angelou is a culture which has completely forgotten what poetry even is. As Flannery O'Connor famously replied, when asked whether she thought writing workshops were stifling young writers: "Not enough of 'em."

Can we maybe start up #Poetrygate, too?

"Isabel Yap writes fiction and poetry, works in the tech industry, and drinks tea. She was born and raised in Manila and is currently nomadic."

May I courteously suggest that Isabel Yap find some nomadic time to migrate back to Manila?

The ponderously self-admiring (but not entirely untalented) Robert Lowell was once asked to give a reading at some culture site or other in (believe it or not) Staten Island. To his horror, he discovered that the endlessly flippant and vastly better Frank O'Hara had also been invited to read. Lowell read one of his ponderous self-pitying works, as per the usual plan. Frank then produced a half-torn piece of notepaper from his pocket and said, "Oh, I just wrote this twenty minutes ago, while I was sitting on the ferry." The poem was "Lana Turner has collapsed!" which is easily funnier, lighter, more at ease, and more insightful than half of Lowell's stuff. I wish I had been there to see his head explode. It's a little like Scalzi getting into a piano-playing contest with Chico Marx.

The more I read him the more I find Scalzi one of the oddest characters. He's a straight man who acts out every Homophobic Gay stereotype. Bitchy, snarky, untrustworthy, likes to wear dresses, left-wing, dislikes sports, and obsessed with the Anus.

People who read here are assholes. Actually, according to the demographics, you're much wealthier and better-educated than the norm. And considering how lightly I moderate, I think it's self-evident that most people here are more civil than average as well.

I think this stick in Scalzi's craw more than anything. On average we're more successful, happier, wealthier, better looking, and more intelligent than a Whatever reader. They spin and spin and spin but they can't change that reality. And it kills them inside.

Yap is very very Filipino, in the sense of intense, outraged SJWishness. Im Filipino myself, born and raised. That's a fault of Filipino intellectuals since Rizal, over a century ago.I've read piles of stuff much like hers, from the 1950s-80s.Rizal could and did do humor, but the rest of them seem to feel their readers need to do penance, or get inspired to run to the hills and shoot some policemen. Nuts to that.Yap herself seems to be a Chinese mestiza. Its a pity that her poetic imagination seems stuck on our usual third world horrors. Life isn't horror, even in a hard world. The weird mix of of language, style, attitude, fantasy that is native to the Filipino, especially to the mixed up mestizos, is unique. Filipino popular culture is much, much more interesting and fun than what she has posted. Heck, I've been to Chinese weddings there that would keep Tom Wolfe busy for a decade. And even he wouldn't get it.One day we will get a really fine writer, our own Naipaul - well, to do justice to the place what we really need is a Cervantes. With a perverse sense of humor.

There is no pure Filipino, unless you want to talk to some mountain tribes. And even they aren't pure anymore, I don't think. Filipinos are Malays, broken up into numerous language groups, indoctrinated into Catholicism, given a Bourbon political culture, inducted into the modern world by the US. And the top stratum of the economy is dominated by Chinese and Chinese mestizos. And thats not the end of matters, by a long shot.It is a bit confusing.

Unfortunately, these days my scale and I don't get along well.We avoid each other. Its a troubled relationship. I usually just ask my wife if my pants fit. Oh, on the cultural scale you mean ?I'm the other sort of mestizo, the Spanish flavor. Most of my people have taken our native dialect of Spanish and brought it to Australia.

What's your basis for thinking your Impressions will pass Scalzi's in the near future? He has a very substantial Twitter presence; the medium suits his writing style. He more or less livetweets his life.

Most followers on twitter are bots (or humans who act like them) - if you don't triage your followers you can quickly get thousands of followers without doing anything noteworthy or having any kind of 'real' following.

I only follow-back those accounts that look like genuine people that share an interest - that's about 1 in 5 of the accounts that "follow" me. The rest are just bots tweeting quotes and/or clickbait.

VDBEALE doesn't have the writing chops to be in Scalzi's league. Actually, I'd put us both right in the same league. We're both mediocre, albeit for very different reasons.

I would have to disagree. I reread Protector yesterday and compared it to QM: A Man Disrupted. I believe that I derived just as much enjoyment from both novels.

While Niven had some more flowery prose early on, especially in the descriptive sections, I think Vox's writing, at least in the QM series, is up there with Niven's.

I will have to go through the horror of rereading Scalzi's first book to see where I would place him. Since it does not stand out in my mind like Niven's books or Pournelle's or Vox's, I suspect my I will be disappointed.

Post a Comment

Rules of the blogPlease do not comment as "Anonymous". Comments by "Anonymous" will be spammed.